Graffiti

Review by Heather M. White:

I needed to learn how to draw graffiti for one of my classes. I bought this book and after alot of practice I was decent at it. The book explains where to start, what colors to use, and many other things(for more advanced artists). The book was worth the money.

Review by L. Martin:

This book has provided countless hours of enjoyment for my teen who is interested in graffiti art. The book is of immense practical and educational benefit and has proven to be one of my son’s most-loved possessions. Thank you Scape Martinez!!!

Review by Zach McKeown:

This book is absolutely fantastic and with its gorgeous photography and interesting biographies it really fills a void of appreciation for the art style. Anyone into art of any style should give this book a chance, it has some really astonishing work on display. Easily five stars.

Review by Eddie Coulant:

This is a great piece of work! All continents are being covered and illustrated with an abundance of pictures. The only thing I don’t really get is the picking of the artists by the author. There are a lot of influential writers that aren’t mentioned in this book. I, for example, are from Holland, and the crews that are chosen are limited to a few, and there actually are some better, higher quality crews to choose from.

All in all, a great book!

Review by Kathlene Kelly:

Street artist/fine artist Nicholas Ganz, author of Graffiti World, offers urban art enthusiasts a second round of exceptional research and art compilation, this time concentrating on the pioneering contributions of women to contemporary graffiti writing and artwork. Having always been a part of the street art front lines, female graffitisans are typically overshadowed by the men in the ranks due to sheer numbers rather than any lack of innovation or talent. Ganz, along with author Nancy Macdonald and co-conspirator Swoon have produced an exhaustive narrative that tells the intricate story of graffiti writing women. Included are the artist’s personal stories and their insights into the male-dominated urban art world.

The Ganz collection, like his earlier work, promotes the efforts of praiseworthy, marginalized artists. In the case of Graffiti World that marginalization occurred as a result of the art form itself. In Graffiti Women, it’s not the “second-best”, urban artist that is lauded but the women who are graffiti writers that receive the exhaustive and well-deserved coverage. Although the author’s intent is not to be divisive, it is unfortunate that our cultural approach to acknowledging one another centers around labeling people as either “blank” or “female blank”. In Three Artists: (Three Women), Anne Middleton wrote:

To identify an artist this way, as a woman, has never been a merely parenthetical remark. The qualification has customarily been offered as a limit to, rather than a guarantee of, suitability for the artist’s role – with mostly irritating results for the artists themselves. (2)

Nicholas Ganz does a unparalleled job of describing the contribution of almost two hundred women who work in the urban art genre. His book will continue as a permanent part of my small but well-loved collection and I will continue to wonder whether the world is best served by keeping the commendation of exemplary women separate from that of men.

Review by Winnie Wettern:

Graffiti Women is a great book for either the collector, or the first time buyer of street art, also this edition comes with a dust jacket that is also a fold-out poster of art within the book!

Never before has there been a better compiled book on Women artists from right around the world, also includes background and history of Artists.

Review by Manny Hernandez:

Nicholas Ganz has done a great job at traveling the world to capture in this book the state of street art everywhere. Taking the reader through it by continents (Americas, Europe, Rest of the World), the book takes you on an in-depth, visually-loaded trip that highlights the work of the best street artists around these days.

If you are looking for an in-depth look at the origins of this genre, you won’t find much of that in “Graffiti World”. However, if you want to compare street art between, say, Denmark and Sidney, or see how the New York style has had an indelible influence in places like Brazil or South Africa, this book will delight you as you learn all about it. Five stars job!

Review by Grady Harp:

Nicholas Ganz has researched the topic of Street Art known in some circles as Graffiti and in this comprehensive book has gathered images not only from the United States but from five continents, images identified by artist with a brief biography accompanied by panorama shots of the larger scale works coupled with details. The result is a complex, lavishly illustrated survey of the art form of the streets and the people who create it.

Graffiti is still a controversial subject. The one form of graffiti which simply marks gang areas or swiftly splays across windows and freeway overhangs and covers billboards is not the issue here. Yes, there is a destructive force to some forms of defacement known as tagging. But that is not the subject of this book. Not unlike the fine little Indie film ‘The Graffiti Artist’ by James Bolton, this book follows the art forms developed by various artists which are more like the murals of yesteryear that are now hallowed as masterpieces. Think Orozco, WPA, etc.

Ganz writes well and his commentary, while mostly descriptive, does delve into some of the philosophical elements of Graffiti Art. Perhaps to those who view any art from a spray can as defacement and the work of hoodlums, this book will open the mind to a popular art of the street. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: perhaps that eye will benefit from this well-designed, well-written, and well-documented survey of international graffiti art. Grady Harp, November 05

Review by :

This is it. Look no further, wait no longer. Here is the winner. The best book ever written about graffiti…hand down. The Big Bang in the world of graffiti books. Whatever Norman Mailer got paid to write this book, it should be doubled.

Review by Paul Handford:

The original edition of this pioneering work has long been a scarce and much sought-after item in the second-hand book trade, a treasure for collectors and for today’s graffiti artists and enthusiasts. It is therefore wonderful to see it once again made readily and widely available.

Mailer’s compelling text remains unchanged, but, while those familiar with “The Faith” will recognize many old graffiti favorites, it is a joy to find that this edition includes a good number of additional images, while Naar himself notes his satisfaction that the photographs – now mostly uncropped – have been allowed to serve his original intent of showing the spirit of that time and place: mid-70s New York city.

ItBooks imprint of Harper Collins are to be congratulated on the excellent design and the very high quality of the photo-reproduction & printing. It all does justice to a seminal work celebrating the life and inventiveness of those many street “taggers”, and it is fitting that the cover displays, as Naar had originally intended it should, a photograph of a group of these kids of 30+ years ago. This work is a true document of its time and place. Go buy a copy now!

Review by ben:

lots of colorplates

a narly little book

deffinitly a good buy graffiti from all around the world

Review by D. Segermark:

This is a small-format book, easy to tuck into a purse, with nice quality (even if a bit small) photography. It claims to present “simply the best graffiti from around the world”, but I would dispute that claim. It’s a nice collection of photographs by one man, ‘KET’, who has been active in the graffiti movement for a long time. That’s all. It’s not an exhaustive survey of the world’s best graffiti, like the book ‘Graffiti World, Street Art from Five Continents’, but then, what do you expect for .00?

Review by Eliot B. Barron:

What an amazing book! It really captures the Bay Area art scene so

vividly. The colors jump off the pages. I am not a long-time graffiti

fan, but this book caught my eye with a scene I never could have

imagined. The art is complex, fun, serious and whimsical. Great

photography by Rotman and wonderful documentation of art that is not

otherwise archived.

Review by The Blind Monk:

This book is just a work of art!! This book is for both fans of graffiti and photographers. I would recommend this book to anyone even if they hated graffiti with a passion. The only thing is that the font color of the interviews are black on a dark gray background making it hard to read but other than that is an amazing book that made me want to slap my momma.

Review by R. Hardy:

Fifty years ago, graffiti was something written in restrooms and was relatively private. Now graffiti is an art form. You can think of it as vandalism; if it is your wall, or a public wall, and it is supposed to stay clean and undecorated, any unwanted spray-painting, no matter how fancy, is vandalism. But even if it is vandalism (and sometimes the owner of the wall invites the decoration, or the painting is done on canvas for a gallery), there is no arguing that graffiti now is some sort of art. This is especially obvious if you examine the hundreds of pictures in _Graffiti L.A.: Street Styles and Art_ (Abrams) by Steve Grody. Grody loves the graffiti of Los Angeles, and booms, “Along with the myriad styles these artists have created, they have also evolved world-class graphic skills now comparable to the best aerosol work anywhere.” It seems funny that anyone would be comparing “aerosol work” from any locales, but you don’t have to know about the styles elsewhere to enjoy the astonishing colors and designs found here. Grody examines the ethical issues of this sort of work, but it is clear that such evaluation is secondary to the art itself. He includes interviews with many of the artists (they call themselves “writers”), examines techniques and styles, and shows an appreciation of how this peculiar form of art has redeemed many of its practitioners, and redeemed some blighted public spaces as well.

The spray can is the choice of the writers because it is easily concealed and is portable. On the wall’s surface, its effects can be controlled, but it can also cover an area quickly. The furtiveness of making graffiti necessitates the use of the spray can, but writers use it even in gallery work. It is also used, when no concealment is needed, on a “permission wall”, a surface donated by its owner for esthetic reasons to be the site of an elaborate piece. The writers quoted here have much to say about the work of others; it is clear that they have examined styles carefully and can give intelligent critiques of what they have seen, and that they admire the works of competent competitors. They know “bad can control” or excessive imitation when they see it. The writers are in danger of criminal prosecution if they are not working on permission walls, and are in physical danger if they are working on some surface that is elevated. There is little tangible reward to this type of artistry, which is mainly a means of self expression with little other benefit. Grody writes, “It is this creative passion in light of all the obstacles that gives the best work its pop pulp energy.” There are numerous stories here about members who were at risk of descending into drug use or crimes worse than artistic vandalism, but were saved by joining a group of like-minded artists.

The descriptions here of classifications of the work, the social forces at play, and the lives of the writers are all good for putting the pictures here in context, but the pictures are the show in this big and glossy book. Not all the pictures could even get in here, as with the book there is a disk included of hundreds more, along with audio interviews. It is fun to try to make out the letters, which are clear in some of the examples shown here, but are often so stretched and stylized that even if you know the crew that has put its name up, it is hard to pick the letters out. The depiction of figures or portraits is sometimes hyper-realistic, but usually in a comic book style, and is (to my eyes) far less appealing than the letters shaped into abstractions of extraordinary complexity and color. Grody has a couple of pages to illustrate some basic techniques, like cuts, 3-D, or letter blends, but there is no need to acquire a technical eye to enjoy the shows of kinetic mural energy displayed here. There is still some moral ambiguity about some pieces and their execution, but one picture after another shows that this is a vibrant and valid form of folk art.

Review by MikesSon:

By no exaggeration, this book is the best of its kind. It starts out with the history of gang writing then follows up with the evolution of the art including techniques, paint and cap types, run-ins with the law, etc. The pictures are as clear as can be, and the forever present artist commentary is the perfect compliment to the fantastic collection of pics. This is a must own for any fan of graffiti.

Review by N. Bowers:

When I saw this book I was kind of hesitant since I have been on a long and somewhat unsuccessful look for a New York graffiti book, but I decided to hope for the best and order this book. Once I received the book I was not disappointed. This book is pretty complete, covering the subways from the early 70s all the way through modern graffiti. What I liked best about this book is that it didn’t simply focus on bombing or piecing, it showed both styles of graffiti and explained the origins of each. If you want a good graff book then buy this book, you’ll be happy that you did.

Review by Pam:

It should be pointed out that this is a unique book on drawing cartoon characters, not actually making graffiti. My young son particularly likes the skateboard stuff in this book, and he is able to follow along with the step-by-step demonstrations easily. Kids will like this.

Review by Raquel Couto:

I’m not sure how this book could even be labeled graffiti anything. There is nothing graffiti about it. This is a book on how to draw cartoon characters, period. I have been a graffiti artist for over 15 years and the characters in this book aren’t even remotely close to being graffiti characters. I bought this book for a nephew of mine who has always been into my graffiti work and I thought he would enjoy it. But, it’s a HUGE disappointment.